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Closer Than They Appear

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How do you go forward when the past is breathing down your neck? Carvell Wallace talks to Americans grappling with the state of the union while trying to reconcile his own family's fractured history. If America is an estranged family, this show is our awkward holiday dinner.

How do you go forward when the past is breathing down your neck? Carvell Wallace talks to Americans grappling with the state of the union while trying to reconcile his own family's fractured history. If America is an estranged family, this show is our awkward holiday dinner.

How do you go forward when the past is breathing down your neck? Carvell Wallace talks to Americans grappling with the state of the union while trying to reconcile his own family's fractured history. If America is an estranged family, this show is our awkward holiday dinner.

Episodes

Do you love America? No, seriously, Carvell Wallace wants to know: do you love America? Today, he talks with Van Jones and Rabia Chaudry about love. Love for our country, love for the complicated humans in our lives, and love for ourselves. Together, they also explore power, specifically political power, and whether or not we can pursue political power with love.

Carvell Wallace goes to his hometown of McKeesport, PA and it's like visiting a small town... but it's also like visiting the remaining survivors of an apocalypse. Carvell talks with his childhood friend, Shamrace Mims. Decades ago, they rode bikes and played Atari. They sat on porches in the late afternoon, throwing rocks and talking rap crews and Transformers. That was of course until Carvell moved. The town changed. And Carvell's path and Shamrace's path... they diverged.

Going out and talking to people is a little thing, but it's also a big thing. Especially if those people are different from you, or might not like you, or might even reject you. Carvell Wallace talks to someone who's doing just that. Dr. Ayaz Virji is the town doctor in the 1400-person town of Dawson, Minnesota. He, his wife, and their three children are the only Muslim family in Dawson. The 2016 election changed how he saw his neighbors — so he started talking.

Carvell Wallace turns to Shereen Marisol Meraji from NPR's Code Switch to ask: How can we come together as a country when it seems like so many things are working to keep us apart? Thanksgiving is one of the only days of the year when a lot of us - literally, physically - have to come together with people we might not agree with, whether we want to or not. It's the quintessential American holiday. So who are the quintessential Americans?

Who or what is in your own past right now that you need to face, but aren’t facing — and why not? Host Carvell Wallace has a theory that maybe this whole nation is just 320 million people who all need to talk with someone they're afraid to talk to. He certainly needs to do that himself. Actor Mahershala Ali joins Carvell to talk about family, America, and grace.